Alternate fig-8 / stereo-shotgun center mic-
For a while now I've wanted to try an alternate fig-8 as Side channel in my center Mid/Side pair. The inexpensive Naiant X8 I've been using and have recommended to others has been working well, but.. well, you know, curiosity for one thing.. and physical format. The Naiant X8 consists of two back to back cardioids wired out of polarity in a 'T' shaped housing. With some effort I've been able to wedge it into a big Sure windscreen or Movo along with the tiny DPA 4098 as Mid strapped on top of it, but a more typical single-tube-body side-address fig-8 would fit more easily. And I've wondered if a more technically-correct single-diaphragm fig-8 might perform even better.
I've also been curious about alternate Mid mics, partly in the quest for as much clarity and isolation in that Mid channel as possible.. as long as it images smoothly in in combination with the near-spaced pair, since it serves as the center mic of that triplet. We previously discussed shotgun mics in OMT arrays back in 2019 in this thread and another (
ORTF + Central Omni thread at GS). Here's a snip of what I posted back then-
[snip..] Comparison of the shotgun against a mid super-cardioid derived from the MKH 800 Twin, haven't done that yet.
Likewise I'm currently curious how a true shotgun (albeit a short one) as Mid compares against the supercard Mids I'm using (Microtek Gefell M21 or DPA4098 which does incorporate a miniature interference tube, although its pattern is supercardioid rather than gun-ish) as the logical next step in OMT evolution, following a decade long trend of ever-increasing center mic forward directivity from omni to cardioid to supercardioid.. and from mono to M/S stereo for that forward-center position in the array. It's also what motivated my suggestion in the B9Audio thread this morning, upon the proprietor's post about some potential design variants of B9 mics, requesting consideration of an end-address M/S stereo microphone with an interchangeable Mid capsule, where any Mid pattern from omni to gun could be swapped in. https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=187681.msg2311215#msg2311215
My current thoughts are that the ultimate cost-is-no-object microphone for that center OMT position in terms of performance alone could be Neumann RSM 191A, or an imaginary M/S version of the DSP directionally-enhanced SuperCMIT, with an analog M/S output. Thinking I'll to try a lesser performing but reasonably priced stereo shotgun as proof of concept.
Unfortunately B9 Audio decided not to pursue that modular Mid/Side stereo mic idea - I still wish someone would! Late last summer DSatz had the Neumann on offer in the yardsale. Beautiful but too costly and too precious for me, and cannot be used directly into a recorder without its special powering box, so I passed. Instead I finally picked up a "reasonably priced stereo shotgun" in the form of the AT BP4029 short stereo shotgun from TS member BlueSky71 last October (good transaction, thanks!). So it took almost 5 years but I'm finally to the point of trying this out for myself.
Back then when we were discussing this, EmRR went on to try some interesting arrangements using a shotgun mic as an alternate Mid in the center. He also included a second center shotgun pointed directly at the nearer PA speaker. Here's a link to discussion of that earlier in this thread, along with photos of a couple of his setups-
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=191953.msg2316452#msg2316452My intent has been to substitute the AT stereo shotgun in place of the DPA/Naiant M/S pair in the center. In December I was able to run both at three quite different venues. The first was at a small local show at an outdoor patio stage (Electric Kif at Guanabana's), the second was from the last row of a 3000 seat amphitheater (DSO at the Pompano Bch Amp), and the last was from just in front of the board at the back of the pit in a mid-sized indoor venue (Oteil & Friends @ Revolution Live in Ft. Lauderdale). For each I was more or less centered and used the stereo shotgun oriented directly forward in the typical way.
For the first two shows I ran both M/S pairs concurrently, recording the DPA/Naiant M/S pair into F8 as usual and the AT stereo gun into OCM R-44 (omnis analog patched from the F8 into the other 2 channels of the R-44). I still need to transfer and align/stretch the files to do a proper comparison in the OMT8 array, but I'm really liking the bit of extra clarity the shotgun provides for vocals when comparing the OMT4 version of both filesets (omnis + M/S center). Instrumental-wise both are more on par. I think I'd be happy with either. It's that last little bit of vocal clarity (without relying on matrixing with SBD) that this change seems to achieve. That's really welcome. More listening to do, and need to try it on-stage as well, but this is the first time I've really come to believe that I may have figured out a single arrangement that works optimally everywhere from onstage to the back row of an amphitheater, to an indoor bar. Although I've been using my setup in that way for convenience reasons, it actually being an optimal arrangement for most all situations is quite unexpected.
A few photos to follow..